[AR] Re: Falcon 9 flight today
- From: JMKrell@xxxxxxx
- To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 7 Oct 2013 17:27:36 -0400 (EDT)
Ben,
Henry notes that most of the venting is LOX. Ionizing radiation quickly
converts oxygen to monatomic radicals. Monatomic oxygen does etch the
surfaces of satellites as they pass through the cloud, but this is a nuisance
compared to shrapnel from a ruptured tank. The pressurizing gas in the RP-1
tanks is vented, but little RP-1. Venting tons of RP-1 would pose a coating
hazard to satellite optics and sensors. Upon venting most of the RP-1
solidifies like your YouTube example and then sublimes at a very slow rate.
John Krell
In a message dated 10/7/2013 12:58:05 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
wikkit@xxxxxxxxx writes:
On Mon, Oct 7, 2013 at 1:43 PM, Henry Spencer <henry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
> Vented propellant would be a hazard to other traffic only if that other
> traffic passed very close to the venting stage soon after venting. The
> vented propellant spreads out fast, and eventually blends into the
> surrounding atmosphere. (Note also that much of what is vented from a
> Falcon upper stage is LOX.)
There would have been a small impulse if something flew through the
cloud when it was dense, just as one of the schemes for deorbiting
space junk is to put up a suborbital cloud of dense dust in front of
the junk. I don't have software that could search for conjunctions in
any reasonable amount of time, though.
The LOX would have contributed to the particle cloud with the RP-1.
Pulling vacuum on liquid nitrogen will create solid nitrogen, as can
be demoed in the lab: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy1_R2u1UKk Same
is true for oxygen. The oxygen ice crystals wouldn't last long in
sunlight, but it wouldn't have gone straight to gas from the rocket.
Ben
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